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Polygamist leader heard on tape training girls for sex

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Warren Jeffs is taken into the side entrance of the Tom Green County Courthouse on Monday in San Angelo, Texas. Jurors convicted Jeffs last week of sexually assaulting two girls, ages 12 and 15, whom he had taken as brides. He faces up to life in prison. Jeffs has led the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints since 2002.

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Softly telling five girls to “set aside all your inhibitions,” convicted polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was heard Monday giving his child brides instructions on how to please him sexually during a graphic 10-minute tape played for a Texas jury.

An FBI agent testified that the 2004 audiotape, in which Jeffs is heard breathing heavily, preceded Jeffs having sex at the same time with all the girls, who were 15 and younger. Several jurors squirmed or wiped away tears during the sometimes-scratchy recording.

Jeffs faces life in prison after being convicted by the same jury last week of sexually assaulting two of his “brides,” who were 12 and 15. The sentencing phase of his trial is expected to finish early this week.

Prosecutors showed a page from one of Jeffs’ journals.

“If the world knew what I was doing, they would hang me from the highest tree,” Jeffs wrote in 2005, according to one of thousands of pages of notes seized along with the audio recordings from his Texas ranch.

The 55-year-old is the ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. More than 10,000 followers consider him God’s spokesman on earth.

Jeffs boycotted his sentencing phase for a third straight day, but made a brief courtroom appearance Monday after being summoned by state District Judge Barbara Walther. She told Jeffs’ attorney, Deric Walpole, that she wanted to make sure Jeffs hadn’t changed his mind.

Wearing a charcoal suit and carrying a blank yellow legal pad, Jeffs walked back into court but never spoke. Walpole said Jeffs wanted to stay outside, and Jeffs was escorted back to another room in the courthouse.

Soon after, prosecutors played the tapes. Jeffs is heard telling the girls that what “the five of you are about to do is important.” The recording ends with him asking the girls if his instructions are detailed enough. The voices of at least two girls responded, “Yes.”

Jeffs kept meticulous records — as jurors found out during the conviction phase of the trial. Last week, they heard a tape of what prosecutors said was Jeffs sexually assaulting the 12-year-old victim.

Prosecutors suggested that the polygamist leader told the girls they needed to have sex with him — in what Jeffs called “heavenly” or “celestial” sessions — in order to atone for sins in his community. Several times in his journals, Jeffs wrote of God telling him to take more and more young girls as brides “who can be worked with and easily taught.”

FBI agent John Broadway testified that fathers who gave their young daughters to Jeffs — their prophet — were rewarded with young brides of their own. Girls who proved reluctant to have sex with Jeffs were sent away, according to excerpts from Jeffs’ journals that prosecutors showed to the jury.

“If they wanted to not be rejected by God, then the new laws [Jeffs] was introducing was requiring them to participate in these sessions,” Broadway said.

The recordings and journals were seized during a 2008 raid on a church ranch in rural West Texas. That raid led to the charges against Jeffs and several of his followers.

Jurors also saw photos of Jeffs that were a contrast to the modest, conservative attire favored by the church he heads. The photos showed him wearing novelty T-shirts and a baseball cap with a Guinness beer logo.

The polygamist leader spent years evading arrest — crisscrossing the country as a fugitive who eventually made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before his capture in 2006, prosecutors said. A state investigator testified that Jeffs visited 23 states over nearly a year while eluding authorities.

Jeffs also allegedly excommunicated 60 church members he saw as a threat to his leadership, breaking up 300 families while stripping them of property and “reassigning” wives and children.

Walpole, Jeffs’ attorney, has declined to say whether he’ll call witnesses during the sentencing phase. He has indicated that his plea for leniency will focus on Jeffs being a product of his environment and a culture that hasn’t changed for centuries.